I only own my Oc's

Chapter 3: Over and over

The darkness was all around, encompassing every bit of being that existed in Tsuki's state of mind. There was no gravity but the space was dense, so dense that movement was nearly impossible. Her limbs were heavy, frozen and felt like pins and needles were sticking her body with an uncomfortable numb sensation. Cold air chilled her to the core and made her bones stiff with the wintry sensation. Her dark hair that was loose from her typical ponytail was fanned out around her head as if she was in water instead of nothingness. Pressure squeezed on her lungs and made breathing nearly impossible. She wasn't sure where she was, but she wanted an escape from the lonely hell she had been in for what seemed like days.

She wasn't sure what she had done to deserve this sort of punishment; it could have been anything. Maybe the Afreet Eggs that she had hunted and allowed Taiyou to eat were finally catching up to her and causing this. Possibly the mother or father she never had was punishing her from above. She didn't care what she had done; the helpless girl just wanted to get out.

There was a drop in the denseness of the air and the gravity took effect and pulled her down through the blackness. Wind rushed past her head as she made her uncontrolled decent to the ground and whipped her hair in her face with tiny needles of pain that just blended in with the numbness. Her crimson eyes closed as she awaited the pain from the contact of the ground.

She never felt the ground. Instead, the drop seemed to slow and halt completely as her bare feet touched the icy surface of the ground. The ground wasn't actually earth or a floor; it was water or a solid liquid that rippled under her feet. It was cold and tickled the soles of her bare feet as she opened her eyes. The numb feeling was fading rapidly and she enjoyed the sensation of something under her feet. Something white suddenly caught the corner of her vision. White hair…was it Taiyou? No, it couldn't be, Taiyou wore a white shirt and was much taller. The person turned around and to her surprise, Soul faced her. What was he doing here?

He was only about 20 feet away and wore a clean, new tuxedo. He didn't move though, he just watched her with his own red eyes. As Tsuki took a step forward, he turned and ran the opposite way. "W-wait!" Tsuki called out after him as she ran after him; she couldn't stand to be left alone in this place again. He turned his head and laughed as he continued to run, like they were playing a game. Tsuki tried to speed up but as she went faster, the water below her started getting less solid and her feet would sink. Her lungs burned with the effort of the chase, but Soul seemed to be just fine, happy even as she tried desperately to catch him.

Her feet sunk lower until something wrapped around her knees and caused her to fall. She toppled over and as her face hit the water, it turned thick and sticky. She removed her face and wiped the liquid off. It was warm instead of the previous cold and smelled of something she couldn't name, sort of like iron or metal. She caught a glimpse of her hands that she rubbed across her face; they were smeared with red. Her pupils contracted with fear and she looked down at her legs.

Snakes were wrapped around her knees and were hissing and slithering farther up. She tried to scream, but the air was sucked out of her lungs and she was suffocating. A scaly appendage shot up from the liquid and wrapped around her with lighting speed and sucked her down into the depths of the darkness. The warmth of the liquid enveloped her and more snakes coiled around her and squeezed her painfully. She opened her mouth and the liquid rushed in. The rusty, metallic taste was familiar. She then knew what the thick liquid was; it was blood.

Soul's hand cut through though the surface and came towards Tsuki's own grasp. She reached out to take his hand with difficulty due to the snakes that were wrapped around her and the pressure that restrained her. Their fingers brushed and their gazes met. His image was clear as day even through the crimson blood. Her strength was being sapped out of her body and his grip weakened. With one final tug from the snakes that were bound around her, their grips were ripped away from each other. His fleeting image was replaced with the thick blood that was all around her.

The large snake tail that ensnared her yanked her farther and farther down into the warm depths of the liquid. She suddenly stopped and two golden eyes glared straight at her. "Foolish child," it hissed as its grip tightened, "You are alone here. I'm your hell here." The angry slits of its eyes tightened and its maw parted to reveal two sharp fangs that dripped with saliva. With a hiss, it struck at the raven-haired girl.

Tsuki's eyed flew open and she shot upright in the bed she was laid in. No noise left her mouth but her eyes were wide with fear and her body trembled as she breathed in and out quickly. With each labored breath, she took in her surroundings and saw that this wasn't the bloody hell she was in previously. It was quite the opposite with the white walls and sterilized equipment.

"Tsuki!" Someone called her name. A flash of white hair and tanned skin blurred her vision and she was crushed with a hug. The scent was familiar, bright and fresh like an orange; it must be her 'brother'. She relaxed completely as Taiyou embraced her. Human contact… she had missed in her dream; it was hellishly lonely there. There was nothing, only the darkness and the blood. She had this dream before, multiple times while she was unconscious. It always faded back to the darkness though. The snake had never actually attacked her; It always just tossed her deeper into the bloody liquid. It never failed in frightening her.

"I'm so happy you woke up! Thank God," he murmured into her hair as he nuzzled her lovingly into his bare chest. Tsuki sighed contentedly and wrapped her sore arms around him as well. Warm, wet liquid dripped on her head and she looked at his face. Fat tears were rolling down his face and onto Tsuki's hair. She reached and wiped the tears away. They rolled off his face and dribbled down her fingers.

"You're crying…" She said in her normal monotonous voice. He straightened up surprised that tears wear actually cascading down his face. His hands wiped his face and he laughed.

"I guess I am. I suppose I'm just so glad to see you awake."

She nodded and embraced him again. Taiyou squeezed her body in his arms, afraid that he might come so close to loosing her again. They stayed like that for a few minutes until someone with blond hair coughed and turned their attention to her. "Sorry, to break you two up, but I need to finish my check up on Taiyou's wound to see how it's healing," she said as she beckoned Taiyou to the table where he was sitting earlier. He released her and did as he was asked. "Then I need to see you, Tsuki." She looked at the girl and Tsuki saw her eyes. They were just like that snake's eyes in her dream; piercing and underneath the mask, there was a sadistic delight. How could nobody see it? With a smile, most of the dreadful qualities of her eyes were covered. That's how…

Tsuki nodded and stretched; it was probably nothing, just a lingering feeling from the dream. A Bright splash of color caught her attention and she surveyed her side table with her crimson eyes. A large bouquet of flowers erupted from a thin, clear vase with an explosion of white, red, orange, pink, yellow and purple daisies and a sticker on it signaled it was from Taiyou. She remembered that Taiyou had once said that each flower had a meaning and that daisies meant loyal love, he must've used them as a symbol for a loyal sibling love. The vase emanated sweet scents and she plucked out a simple white daisy. She twirled it in her fingers happily as she brushed the petals with her fingertips.

On the bed near her, the white haired Soul slept soundly. He looked so tranquil as he slept; it was rather different than his nonchalant attitude. Her dark eyebrows furrowed together in wonder; did he wake up before her? How long was he asleep? How long was she, asleep? "Tsuki-kun, your turn."

Tsuki nodded and lifted her legs from the bed and onto the cold floor. Taiyou watched warily as she wobbled across the floor. That's what staying in bed for so long does. She stopped by the side tables and looked at Soul's; had Soul gotten anything? She glanced at the daisy in her fingers and placed it on the side neatly. She had a million more, what would giving one away do? She walked over to the table and sat where the doctor could tend to her. "I need you to lift up your shirt so I can see your wounds."

Tsuki obliged and peeled off her loose white shirt that Taiyou must've lent to the doctor for her to use instead of the tight black shirt she usually wore. The black one might've busted the stitches that bound the wounds or gotten the wound infected. The shirt hung loosely around her neck so it could easily be put back on without much movement or stretching. Her torso was gruesome; there were stitches everywhere. Right under her ribs, there was a mess of sutures from the arrow attack she must've received and a bit lower was a clean line of stitches running about half a foot long around her curved waist and bruises covered her everywhere. She winced as the older woman dabbed on the antiseptic on the abrasions and did her job of making sure she was healing as well as possible. There was another small spot that needed to be cleaned and checked on her thigh, so Tsuki rolled up the leg of her pants and revealed another deep, stitched up wound.

On the other side of the room, Soul stirred about in the bed. His red eyes opened slowly as he adjusted to the light of the sterilized room. A white flower on his bedside table turned his attention to it. Who put that there? There was a vase of daises only a few feet away; Tsuki might've left it there for him, but her bed was empty and last he remembered, she was out cold and hadn't woken up yet. He sat up slowly to take a better look around the room and he surely found where the raven-haired girl was.

Not too far across the room, he spied her hop down from the table where the doctor must've been previously inspecting her. Her shirt was draped around her neck giving him a full view of her nearly bare upper body and one side of her shorts was rolled up where most of her thigh was showing. Soul's crimson eyes widened and his mouth fell open as he watched her walk a bit, perhaps Dr. Medusa wanted to see if there were any problems with her movement. Good thing that Taiyou was absent from the room at the moment…A fountain of blood from his nose forced him to lie back down and twitch under the covers.

Dr. Medusa had left the room with the orders of 'get some rest and you may be able to leave tomorrow' and allowed Tsuki to redress. She slipped on the shirt that draped over her neck and smoothed out the loose shorts that were rolled up. She caught Soul watching her, but ignored it and retained her impassive expression. Her control over her feelings was amazing; on the inside of her expression, she was having a major freak out about Soul being some sort of pervert. She crossed the room and stopped by the white haired boy's bed and saw him feigning sleep. Was he dead…it sure seemed like it…

She poked him in the forehead and said, "I know you saw me…" His eyes popped open at her touch and words and he waited a smack upside his head for actually watching her, but the pain never came; she just removed her finger from his forehead. "Don't say a word and I'll let it pass, deal?"

"Yeah," he said as a thankful grin crossed his lips. She just quirked up her own lips in a small smile. "Our secret…That sounds dirty," he chuckled as he sat up straight again and wiped a dribble of blood off his face. Tsuki looked blankly at him.

"Don't push it…Think of it as a thanks for helping me in Italy."

"Yeah…we're even now…"

The rest of the day, evening, and night went all the same: sleeping and small conversations with the boy on the other bed. She cracked one or two small smiles by the end of it and Taiyou came in and out throughout the day to check on her. In the end, they had become better acquainted with one another. Perhaps sitting in a hospital bed for a few hours wasn't as bad as she thought. The next day, both of the fourteen-year-olds were released fully after a meticulous exam from both Dr. Stein and Dr. Medusa.

Taiyou waited patiently outside the door of the office with Maka as they awaited the emergence of their partners. Taiyou tried to start a conversation with Maka with something they both had in common."Oi, Maka," He said to grab her attention. She looked at him silently. "You glad that they're able to come out?" He continued on when she said nothing. She just nodded at his attempt at conversation. This was getting akward as usual; every time he tried to make a conversation with Maka, She was unresponsive and only gave short answers like yes, no, maybe and so on. Taiyou was beginning to think that the blond girl didn't like him…why? Silence fell for another minute before Taiyou broke it. "Do you not like me, Maka?"

She looked at him in thought. His head was held down and his white locks covered most of his face and shrouded his expression. She pondered her answer."It's not that I don't like you…It's that you just remind me of my Papa." It was true too; Taiyou did act an awful lot like Death Scythe. He whined like him, he flirted like him, he cared like Tsuki the way Spirit tried to care for Maka. He never once flirted with her though; he acted more like a cheerful guardian. He looked up, his eyebrows cocked in wonder and confusion.

"I do?"

"Yeah, It's like having another Papa around. You could be his brother besides the appearance."

"Except I'm the younger and better looking one?" Taiyou grinned hopefully, trying to make the conversation a bit lighter. She smiled at his joke and nodded. "Thanks, at least I know you don't hate me."

Just then, Soul and Tsuki emerged from the door and saw the two exchanging smiles. What did they miss? Taiyou ran up to Tsuki and drew her up in a hug and swirled her around as if she was a five-year-old. "Tsuuuuukkkkkiiiiiiii!" He cheered as he spun her around. Soul and Maka looked at each other; their close relationship as brother and sister never stopped amazing them, especially with the difference in their personalities. They had been Weapon and Meister for a long time, but they never got that close.

"You're acting like I…" Tsuki said. She soon saw the fault of her words and the happiness was replace with akwardness.

"Let's get going. The others are probably going to be looking for us.

They walked down the Hallway and soon found the group they were looking for. The blue-haired Black*Star and the nearly symmetrical Death the Kid shook hands and agreed on something. Soul and Maka approached first and announced their arrival. Taiyou hung back with Tsuki. "Go ahead," she urged him on. With a Grin he flew off into the group!

"MY LOVELIES!" He shouted cheerfully as he dove into the group and gathered up a surprised Tsubaki, Liz and Patty into his grip.

Oh this routine again. Tsuki smiled slightly as she entered the group casually. She wouldn't have it any other way…

REVISED (1-2-11)

Done with this Revision! Thanks for all the reviews! They make me happy :)